Our Schedule:

Teaching English and Art together, putting on the GospelCafé concerts, prayer, meeting with our new French friends. It's a good life!

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Thursday, January 19, 2012

My brother asked me if I wake up in the night thinking, "I'm in a foreign country"?

I really think more about being in a foreign country when I'm on a train platform and there is an announcement over the speaker in French saying something like, "the train is not coming and won't be here until who knows, so go do something about it." Everyone starts to leave and I'm thinking "what?" and I follow like a sheep looking for another train that's going my way. I'm not as nervous as I used to be - like back in March and April. That experienced happened today. Then I looked at a guy nearby and went "que?" pronounced "kay" which means "what" and he started rattling off in French and I looked interested and had no clue. Ha.
I took off by myself for work today. Russell worked on a website banner for France Vie today while I went into the FV office. I went in by myself to do some accounting for the office, turning on the heat. I need those gloves with the fingers cut off. We are going to try to find some. The wall heaters are producing heat as fast as they can and it does save money doing it this way. I did get some things accomplished and will go back tomorrow. It felt bitterly cold on the way back and looked like it could snow.
Next Wed. Carolyn and I are going to a women's shelter near the palace. There are foreigners living behind the palace in tents. Usually if people stay in a shelter they have to leave for the day. That's pretty standard back in the states too - in Lawrence, they have a few shelters there. Some of our churches in Kansas take turns housing the homeless for a week then the folks go to the next church to stay. Our regular shelters have been more full the last few years because of the economy. They leave for work or to find work or go to school for the day and come back at night to eat, do homework, play games or read and go to bed on cots. Russell and I went up to play games with some teens one evening at MorningStar church in Lawrence and enjoyed it. One of the guys staying at our church in Lawrence that week was selling cars by day and staying in a shelter by night. Rough times.
But for the foreign women and their children behind the Chateau de Versailles, they can come in for the day and get a bath and food plus take some classes on culture, art or learn French. There are Turkish and Kurdish women who speak their own languages and have learned English (it's the international language now). They do not know French. I can probably understand some simple French sentences but have a hard time with any big conversation. The woman said they need more English speakers to help them with these women. I would love to do that so we are going next Wed. to check it out. There are openings for volunteers on Wed. and Fri.
Russell just brought in a nice desk that was out on the edge of the curb waiting for someone to pick it up so now I have desk. That's nice. -Carol